UConn Football Coach Bob Diaco And The Q&A From Middlesex Chamber Of Commerce Breakfast (Part III)

August 20, 2014|By DESMOND CONNER, The Hartford Courant

Part III from Middlesex Chamber of Commerce Breakfast where UConn Football coach Bob Diaco was guest speaker.

Here he takes a few questions from the crowd...

First question, after all we were in Middlesex County, was about quarterback Tim Boyle who played his high school football about 20, 25 minutes at Xavier (maybe a little less up Route 9) from where Diaco was standing Wednesday.

Tim is a fine a young man. We can acknowledge his parents (Kevin and Nancy) right here, second table back. Tim is going to a spectacular quarterback for UConn into the future. He started a fierce competition. He has a massive amount of tools. Building him back up after what I consider to be just a disaster for him a year ago and not his fault, so emotionally building back up, confidently building him back up, caring for him; physically changing his body. He’s turned himself into a fierce competitor. Through fall camp he had some small nagging issues physically that prevented him amongst those three [quarterback competition with recently named starter Casey Cochran and Chandler Whitmer] with that being a part of the last 2 ½ weeks. What we’re going to do for Tim is we’re going to work to protect him. We’re going to work to protect his year and get his year back and he’s a four to play three. He’s going to be a great quarterback for us. He needs to prepare to go into the games, to win the games. So we’re going to keep him up. He’s going to be working with the offense. He’s going to be game-planning our opponents and he’s going to be preparing himself to play winning football. If called upon we will not hesitate. I’m telling you right now: called upon Game one; called upon Game seven, called upon Game 12 to go in to win the game he won’t hesitate and we won’t hesitate as a staff – but we’re not going to burn his year on meaningless downs.

Next question was about linebacker Graham Stewart who also played at The X.

“Graham is going to play outside linebacker for us. He’s always been a physically gifted player. He’s very quick, very fast, very strong for a compact-sized body. What we’re working on now and what he’s working on is his eye progression, his eye key progression and overall, just the understanding of do your job. Do your job. After your job is accomplished which is an art form to figure out when that is then you can help someone else with their job but do your job. So his world, we’re working diligently on him doing his job and eye key progression to do his job.

We’re in a foundational building phase even though it’s nine months in and the game isjust a few days away and that foundation needs to cure and it’s needs reinforcing and that can only happen with time and Graham is a perfect example. Whether we have enough time with him to get his game where it would need to be as good as it can be we’ll see. The understanding for example of our defensive, offensive and special teams systems are at 100 level piece but they can go all the way up to 400 level. They can go all the way up to Ph.D. And that just takes time. It takes experience. You know we can’t necessarily talk about formation recognition and the plays that you’re going to see from particular formations yet if the player is still learning exactly what his assignment is and what his key is, so we’re getting ready to take that next step with Graham, specifically. He’s ready for that next step. He’s ready to go from 100 level to 200 level which is a great thing for our team.

Diaco was asked to comment on the departed Lyle McCombs even though he may not want to.

“No, listen, we’re not hiding from anything….I wish that student athlete the best. When those things come to pass and there’s been a good amount – and there will be a few more – because some people just can’t keep up with the pace of everything that we’re doing physically, mentally, emotionally. And when that happens I want for them, wish for them. I’m still available to them and their needs but the team has to conduct its business a particular way. Nobody is special. Nobody is different. Nobody gets favoritism. Everybody is under the same microscope. Everybody is being evaluated every day with everything that they do all the time and decisions like that have to be made.